Newsdesk is a cgi script designed to allow remote administration of website news headlines.

Due to a failure to properly remove '/../' sequences from user-supplied input, a malicious remote user may lead the newsdesk.cgi script to improperly reveal the contents of any file on the filesystem, and to disclose the portions of the filesystems readable by the user running the webserver.

This can permit an attacker to obtain passwords and other sensitive information, allowing an attacker to gain interactive access to the system with the privilege of the webserver. If the attacker is able to locate the newsdesk.cgi password string, this could permit website defacement.